“Yes he is,” said Fist, frowning as deeply as the gnome. He folded his arms. “Master, this is a very bad idea. Rufus went through it. Believe me, it is not a fun experience.”
“Ooh! Bad!” the rogue horse agreed. “Hurts!”
“Oh, I imagine it won’t be pleasant,” Locksher said, looking down at the slightly moving finger in the box. “I don’t undertake this without some trepidation and believe me, I definitely do not look forward to the experience. However, I do think that this is our best option to discover what is going on down there.”
Maryanne walked over and placed a hand on Lyramoor’s shoulder. “Lyramoor could head down to that building. Knock on the door,” she suggested. “If it’s smart enough to build a house like that, it’s smart enough for him to get it to talk.”
Yes! Squirrel agreed. I will go too. Like Deathclaw.
The elf snorted. “As appealing as that idea sounds, I’m not stupid. I’d be swarmed by those dead things.”
“Rufus would run you down there. I’d provide cover fire. Fist and the wizard could throw in some lightning strikes to clear a path.” Maryanne jabbed him with a stiff finger. “It’s the least you could do after the way you nearly ruined everything by killing that ogre.”
“I didn’t nearly ruin everything!” Lyramoor snapped.
“No one is going down there,” Fist said firmly. “We don’t know who or what is in there.”
The elf glowered at the gnome. “Always exaggerating . . .”
“As I was saying,” Locksher said calmly gesturing with the box. “This is the best option available to us. Fist is correct. The wizard or creature or whatever it is that’s living in that building could very well be the source of this evil, which would mean it has vast bewitching magic. It could very well overpower any of us if we approached it.”
“So you want to try and enter its mind?” Maryanne said in disbelief. “If this thing is that strong, it could crush you like . . . one of those maggots.”
He raised a calming hand. “I am not so unformidable as that. I have a well-trained mind and have done hours of research on the subject. Besides, Fist will be at my side ready to electrify me if things get out of hand.”
“I can see you’re determined to do this,” Fist said, his concern growing. “But don’t do it here where we’re so close to the source of the evil. Why not wait until we are back at the Thunder People camp?” He hoped that the ride back would give him some time to think up a better plan.
“Being closer to the source might be better in this case. Also,” the wizard pointed back over Fist’s shoulder. “I don’t know that we would make it back before that storm hits.”
Fist turned around. While he had been focused on the black lake, the storm clouds had barreled in. The Thunder people territory was hidden from view by sheets of heavy falling snow. “I think this makes it an even worse idea.”
“Nonsense,” said the wizard.
“Aah! Locksher!” Maryanne exclaimed.
Fist turned around to see that the wizard had taken the infested finger out of the box and was holding it in his hand. Larvae were crawling out of the open stump, their little glowing eyes looking around. They surged towards his flesh. Fist reached out, his hand crackling with electricity.
“Wait!” Locksher said, holding his arm out of the way and wincing as they started to burrow into his skin. “I am going to put myself into a meditative trance. This should keep me from going into a rage and attacking you all. Fist, you stay here and watch me. I am bound to struggle a bit from time to time, but be patient with that. Do not shock me unless I attempt any violent behavior.”
Fist grimaced as the larvae disappeared, leaving little holes in the wizard’s flesh. “But Master, sometimes when I shock the ogres, there’s damage.”
The first ogres he had saved had partial numbness in their extremities. He had gotten better at it as time went on, and most of the time now it was okay. But the last one he shocked still had three paralyzed fingers on one hand.
“You’ve had practice since then.” Locksher grunted and sat down in the rear of the cave, crossing his legs and closing his eyes. “Now stop bothering me. These larvae work quickly.”
The wizard was already starting to sweat. Fist had come to know the signs well. The larvae didn’t take over the living as fast as they did the dead, but they caused havoc right away. Sweats and irritability, followed by fever and rage. Fist just hoped that the wizard didn’t start casting spells at them or anything. He started preparing defensive magic just in case.
Locksher trembled a bit, then went still. He was fully in his trance now. The wizard’s lips began to move and he spoke in a monotone voice. “I have cleared my mind of emotion. This will give me more time to work before the larvae’s magic take me over completely. I am now preparing to enter the mind of the enemy. I have a . . .” His voice trailed off and his jaw went slack.
“I guess we have no choice now.” Fist sat down in front of the wizard. “The rest of you should watch the lake and see if you notice anything else helpful.”
I’ll watch! Squirrel volunteered and scampered away.
“Great,” Lyramoor grumbled and wandered after Squirrel, heading to the edge. “And it’s started to snow.”
Qenzic sighed at the fat flakes that were just starting to fall just outside the mouth of the cave. “I suppose I’ll go with him.”
Rufus yawned and stretched out on his back just in front of the cave. I like snow. He placed his large hands behind his oversized head and opened his mouth wide, sticking out his tongue in hope that flakes would fall in.
Maryanne stood there, leaning against the wall of the cave for a few minutes, watching the sweating brow of the wizard. “I should just walk over and kick him in the head right now while he can’t defend himself.”
“That’s not a good idea,” Fist said. “You might disrupt his concentration.”
“Oh you.” She walked over to Fist and surprised him by plopping down into his lap. She put her long arms around his shoulders and gave him a vexed look. “You’re a frustrating man you know? So straight forward and open about everything. Even worse, you expect everyone else to be the same way. Sometimes I just want to-!”
Fist leaned in and kissed her. The gnome was startled at first, but soon leaned into him, letting out a soft moan. Her lips were so different than the lips of an ogress, thinner and softer. Then her hands gripped the back of his head and pulled him in tight and he found out that she was just as ferocious as any ogre female. Fist wasn’t sure how long the kiss lasted, but when she pulled back they were both breathing heavy.
She let out a throaty giggle. “Thank goodness you did that when you did, because I was only going to wait one more day before I grabbed you and did it myself.”
He smiled back at her. “Want me to do it again?”
Maryanne cocked her head and held up one finger. “Just once, because we’re supposed to be watching a wizard.”
Fist looked around her at Locksher, who was still sitting calmly, sweating, but otherwise seeming perfectly uninfested. “Okay,” he said and pulled her in again.
Locksher stood in a mental representation of his mind. It looked like his rooms back in the Mage School, but from before Vannya had reorganized it. Books and items were piled up on the floor, everything in its logical space. He nodded satisfactorily for a moment then cocked his head. It did look a dreadful mess.
He waved his arm and several tall bookshelves appeared. The piles left the floor and everything was much more orderly. He grudgingly admitted, not for the first time, that the mage had been right after all. This was better.
He lifted a scroll in his hands, going over Jhonate’s instructions in how to go into battle against invasive spirit magic. It had taken a great deal of effort to get her to sit down with him long enough to get this information down. There was a checkmark beside, ‘Make a mental representation of yourself’. The next item on the list was. ‘Armor yourself properly before going into bat
tle. By strengthening your mental representation, you strengthen your mind.’
He shrugged. As was to be expected from a warrior woman. Nevertheless, the thought had its merits. His traveler’s robes were replaced by a different set, heavily runed with protective runes and wards of spirit magic nature. They were the robes of the wizard that had trained him, Master Tallow. He didn’t know what all the runes meant, but he had studied them all so closely that he felt he knew them by heart. Wearing these robes made him feel protected. Powerful even.
Next on the list was, ‘Prepare yourself a weapon. You will need it to counter the spiritual attacks of the enemy.’ Locksher had given this one some thought previously. He wasn’t much of a weapons man, but he liked the function and simplicity of the Jharro staff that Jhonate carried. One appeared in his hand. Not quite as long as hers, but sturdy. The perfect height for a walking staff.
He looked at the list again. There were six or seven other items but they seemed to be a bit tedious and he really didn’t have time for the extra preparations. He could already smell the rot invading his space. He stuffed the scroll back into his robes and sought out the source of the smell.
He looked through the aisles of his bookshelves, then moved to the back of his rooms where his desk stood. It was definitely around here somewhere. As Master Tallow would have said, the smell was strong enough to curl his nose hairs. This would be his access point to the mind of the evil.
He opened a few of the small drawers wondering where the larvae’s invasion had begun. The smell grew stronger and he scratched his head until he understood. Of course it would have to begin there. He got down on his knees and reached under his desk, moving a few sacks out of the way.
Locksher nearly gagged on the stench as he grasped the small chest that rested against the wall and pulled it toward him. The chest was made of pine and bound with brass. The name plate on the lid read, ‘Blatche’.
He reached into the pocket of his robes and gripped the key that appeared there. While he watched, the light wood of the chest darkened. The brass corroded. Blackness grew from the seams in the wood. It spread across the floor and up the desk, tarnishing and aging everything it touched.
Locksher took a deep breath and let it out slowly. All things bad came from the family name. He pushed the key into the lock and turned it. The lid sprang open.
There were skulls inside. Black skulls, and they multiplied, spilling into the room. Wherever the skulls landed the blackness spread. The box rotted quickly away and now there was a deep hole where it had been.
Locksher bit his lip. There was no backing down now. He dove into the hole, descending into blackness, the mind of the enemy
He couldn’t see anything at first. Locksher looked behind him and saw the small window of light that was the way back to his mind. A silvery strand stretched from the window and was anchored somewhere along his spine.
This gave him confidence. It was as Jhonate had described. He looked around and as his eyes adjusted, he saw many more pinpricks of light. Those must be the minds of the living infested. He found it alarming just how many there were. As he watched, he saw a couple of them blink out.
He didn’t have time to dawdle. Locksher flexed his mind and the runes on his robe glowed a bright white. His staff glowed more of a gray, but it helped to illuminate his surroundings.
He came to sense that he was inside a large sphere. The specks of light were at the outer edge of the sphere. In the center was an amorphous mass of blackness, even darker than the black surrounding him. It glinted wetly in the light of his staff. Tiny black strands shot out from it into the darkness. He could barely make them out. Thousands and thousands of them, the size of strings. Perhaps millions. He came to realize that each of these strands was connected to an individual larva.
Jhonate had told him that touching these strands might alert the mind he was invading, but Locksher knew right away that avoiding them would be impossible, especially if he was to approach close enough to the center mass to learn anything. So he chose to trust in the spirit magic runes on his robes. Though he didn’t know what each one meant, Master Tallow had told him that they protected him from inquiring minds. He hoped that this would continue to be the case.
Locksher willed himself towards the center, thinking as loud as he could, I’m not here. You don’t see me.
The black strands parted in his wake, enveloping him, surrounding him, but not directly touching him. His choice of armor seemed to be working well. He reached the center mass which was glistening despite the multitude of tendrils that shot from it, and reminded himself what Jhonate had said. She had taken her staff and plunged it into the mass, thinking of the staff as a direct link back to her conscious. She had then absorbed the memories within. Doing so had alerted the moonrat mother of her presence though, so he had to be more careful.
Locksher focused his mind on the gray staff in his hands, willing it to be unobtrusive. Don’t let on you’re here. You’re just one of the tendrils doing its job. He willed the end of it to turn black just in case that helped. Then he pushed it slowly into the mass.
Fist discovered that Maryanne really liked to kiss. ‘One more’ kept turning into another ‘one more’. He was enjoying himself, too, but he worried that he was being irresponsible. After all, it was hard to keep an eye on the wizard with her face in the way.
He placed a finger up between their lips. “I’m sorry, but we must stop for now.”
Finally, said both Squirrel and Rufus through the bond. The rogue horse, still laying on the ground just outside the cave, sighed for emphasis.
Maryanne gave him a playful scowl and bit his finger before climbing out of his lap. “For now, big guy. We’ll revisit this subject at a later date.”
Fist smiled and watched her walk to the cave entrance. The heavy flakes were falling faster now. Rufus was covered in a thick dusting, all but for his lolling tongue and his open mouth, which caught and dissolved every errant flake within their reach. Maryanne sat on the rogue horse’s belly and the great beast let out a chuckle.
“Oh, don’t laugh. You know he liked it,” she said.
Fist turned his eyes back to the wizard just in time to see his body jerk. His facial expression didn’t change, but his breathing rate increased.
“Locksher?” Fist said softly and touched the wizard’s forehead. It was hot. Fist reached out with his healing magic and saw the infestation. He swallowed. There were larvae throughout the man’s bloodstream as well as tiny eggs. It had grown so quickly, from just a few tiny larvae.
He wondered if it would help to kill some of the larvae. Just a few of them, one-by-one just to ease the burden. But he didn’t dare do it just in case he could accidentally alert the evil to what was going on.
“How is he?” Maryanne asked.
“Not good. The infestation is as expected. But I should be able to bring him back as long as they don’t kill him.” The larvae didn’t seem to kill the ogres they infested, but Locksher was a much frailer human. His body might not be able to handle the stress of a full infestation. He kept monitoring the wizard with his magic, preparing to act if the wizard’s body started to shut down.
Uh oh, the house is opening, Squirrel said and sent Fist a quick image of the strange building below and the rock in front of the door rolling to the side.
“Maryanne, Squirrel says something is going on down below,” Fist announced.
“I’ll check it out,” the gnome said, trotting off into the snow.
Locksher’s mind was nearly overcome by the sheer power of the thing. Its presence was massive and all consuming. Its thoughts were low and instinctual, but it had the capacity to process immense amounts of information at once. Each of those black strands carried commands, most of which were of a basic nature. Go. Attack. Stop. As large as it was, Locksher saw that it wasn’t whole. It was half of a mind, all power and little substance.
This didn’t make sense to him. How did it direct the armies of dead with thought
processes so weak? If this was all there was too it, the dead would be stumbling around and walking off cliffs, not a threat to anybody.
As for memories, it had very few for Locksher to absorb. It was as if the thing was a newborn. Its thoughts seemed to have begun about six months ago, just at the end of the war. Locksher found that strange and dug deeper, going back to that beginning and pushing.
He found it and began to understand. He knew what this was. Fascinated, he followed its memories back to the present and noticed something he hadn’t before. A single dark strand protruded from the back of the mass, much thicker than any of the others’ as thick as his arm. This strand had a slight red tint to it, making it the color of dead blood.
Locksher realized that this strand did not originate from the mass, but was attached to it from the far end of the sphere. Another mind had penetrated the mass. A mind that was dark and powerful. He stretched his thoughts into the black mass, finding the joining spot where the red one entered. Then he saw it, a black rune.
The Troll King (The Bowl of Souls Book 9) Page 40
